Teach me, David Mamet, You Are My Only Hope

I started the first of twenty-six videos, and I am going to post my thoughts and bits of the class here.

Check out the class by clicking on the link in the left top sidebar.

Happy New 2018! let’s get going with a new Masterclass.

Who is David Mamet?

David Mamet has written 39 plays, 29 screenplays, and 17 books, and he directed 11 films. If you have ever seen ‘The Unit’ or House of Games then you can see his ability for dramatic writing. Not ringing a bell yet? Then check out imdb.com. His list is impressive checkout IMDb

I will give you a taste of the first video in David Mamet’s Masterclass series.

01 Introduction

This starts out with sounds of people talking. Some upset asking questions; asking to learn something. Then David Mamet walks in and sits down on a tall stool, then we see him at a desk.

And we hear “Oh, have I got your attention now? Good!”

“They say, when the student is prepared the teacher appears. So the same is true of most of the lessons you gonna learn in any… I don’t know of any art, -but certainly in any craft. When you’re ready to learn it you will. –if you want to– and if you need to; and if you don’t want to and don’t need to -you ain’t ready yet. Or maybe you don’t want to. I always say, you know, the arts, my experiences is like running away to the circus. You know. If you got something to fall back on the circus don’t need you, circus don’t want you. You gotta runaway, say OK, I’ll leave, BUT your gonna have to kill me. “

“…Being a writer is a lot like being a beaver their teeth itch, that’s why they cut down trees. “

David said he will talk about, “a kind of unified field theory of aesthetics” where we can regularize how we perceive and how we write.

It is a cause and effect…a survival mechanism.

A plot is an exercise in cause-effect. A plot, a scene, a movie script

Analytically Propounding a theory, does it make sense to you? It can make a great tongue twister until you are ready to learn it, to hear it, to understand it.

Think of it as a logical progression while you’re writing, your thoughts need to see the action. The way I see it… is like a two-year-old, kicking a screaming for candy. He wantsthat candy, not because he loves candy, but because his mother isn’t paying attention to him, ‘look at me’ she is not looking, instead, she is talking. If he doesn’t get the candy he will cry himself to sleep. If he gets it, he will be so wound up he will be climbing the walls. Cause and effect.

“I’ve always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.”~ David Mamet quote

I will post my comments about video #2 in David Mamet’s Masterclassin a future Blog. In the meantime, check out his class by clicking the link in the left top sidebar.